


i think he took my soul

by aisu10



Category: Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"you've changed something in me."</p><p>a retelling of kill your darlings with daemons. [watch the movie first!]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i think he took my soul

**i**

when allen was younger he found that the best way to calm his mother’s tortured mind was to bend to her will, let her haggard vulture daemon clutch his, vulnerable and terrified, in its talons - let her believe the lie that they’d never leave, that they would always be trapped by her insanity.

they both hate it, but his daemon is the one who urges him to apply.

the night the acceptance letter from columbia arrives, his now-settled vole daemon puts her paws on the envelope and tells him fiercely, _“never again.”_

his daemon’s name is anthemia but he’s only ever called her annie. allen likes her new settled form. she fits nicely in all his pockets and doesn’t attract much attention. that doesn’t mean, however, that no one attracts their attention. since they briefly watched a daring blond jump onto a table in the library, golden serval standing confidently at his heel, annie has been restless. she crawls over allen’s hands as he tries to work, saying, “find them.”

eventually, he does. and he quickly finds out that lucien carr is unlike anyone he’s ever met before.

lucien is lounging on the couch across from allen, smoking a cigarette and idly running the fingers of his free hand through the mottled golden fur of the serval daemon on his lap. the feline’s slitted hazel eyes are trained on allen in an unnervingly predatory fashion, as if it is deciding the most efficient way to kill him.

to break the tension, allen says to lucien, “your daemon, she’s quite beautiful.”

the serval’s whiskers twitch upwards in amusement as lucien scoffs, smoke escaping his mouth in a short puff, and drawls, “ _he_ appreciates the compliment -” (and allen scolds himself for not knowing that lucien’s daemon would be _different_ , everything about lucien is _different_ ) “- but don’t encourage him, his ego’s big enough already.”

“i could say the same thing about you,” the serval purrs, eyes finally closing contentedly.

he finds out later that the serval’s name is tamesis, nicknamed tam, but when lucien speaks directly to him he’s always tammy.

**ii**

"where’s his daemon?" allen asks lucien as the two boys listen to their host, david kammerer.

"who knows," lucien replies, "she can go anywhere, it’s like they’re not even connected." his lips turn up in a smirk. "i think he’s a _witch_.”

"what animal is she?" allen presses, curiosity getting the best of him.

"a great big owl," lucien tells him, and allen feels his daemon shiver in his pocket. suddenly lu’s expression darkens. "david’s been following me for years now, you know. every time i move, barely a day passes before i find her watching me through a window."

allen looks at david, and thinks he can feel two sets of eyes looking back.

not too long after they all meet, bill, allen, and lucien are hanging out as usual and are quite a bit high, also as usual. lu’s got his scarf tied around his forehead and he’s giggling much more than he should be as tam runs a golden paw across the spines of bill’s impassive iguana as they lounge on top of the coffee table.

"don’t touch the lizard," bill grumbles.

"i’ve never even heard her speak before," lu says through a grin as his daemon continues to prod.

the iguana suddenly opens her scaly lips and intones dryly, in a voice not all too dissimilar from bill’s, “that’s because i have nothing to say.”

tam freezes and allen and lucien look at each other in shock. in unison they turn to bill, who just shrugs in response as his friends dissolve into riotous laughter all over again.

after several uses, bill’s drugs begin to have weird effects on their daemons. as the boys tear pages out of books and and yell ideas back and forth, tam chases annie around their ankles and lets her nibble his whiskers. allen can feel the hair on the back of his neck prickle every time the daemons touch, and it makes him want to move closer to lu, feel his warmth for a little bit longer.

"tammy, stop acting like a lovesick puppy," lucien scolds as tam grooms annie’s cinnamon fur with his scratchy tongue, sending pleasurable shivers up allen’s spine.

"only if you do, too," tam quips back, and lu, a blush coloring his cheeks, tosses his red scarf at his daemon and laughs into allen’s shoulder.

david barges in on a brainstorming session one day and pulls lucien aside. allen watches from the other room. david’s touch as he whispers to lu, hand on the back of his neck, is gentle. but his daemon, a great gray owl as big and fearsome as lucien had described, betrays his possessive nature. her talons enclose around tam’s shoulders in a way that reminds allen of the vulture’s claws around annie, and he turns away to banish the memory.

the moment allen rouses from his gas-induced hallucination, he looks over to see tam crouched over the floor, jaws open, annie almost entirely tucked inside his mouth. she insists she’s fine but that night allen finds a scar on her, a tiny patch of fur missing from her breast.

"he’s marked us forever," she tells him quietly, nosing the ghost of the gash on his palm.

when allen writes on drugs, it’s like singing. he can’t find his clothes or maybe he doesn’t want to. as they fly across the typewriter his fingers feel warm, wet, maybe with lucien’s saliva, maybe with his blood. annie runs around the room, climbs up and down his shirt, bounces on his chest like a second heartbeat as he lies in bed bicycling his legs in the air. the words run like water until they crash into a wall, a dam, the looming barricade of david. his daemon is there with him, a stoic presence on his shoulder, yellow eyes piercing allen’s skull.

"he’s not here," david says, and both of allen’s heartbeats stutter and stand still.

allen and lucien sleep in the same bed for the first time that night, and they wake to find tam curled on the floor with annie buried in the fur of his belly. lu quickly calls him away and leaves to get breakfast. allen remembers that when he had fallen asleep, annie had been in the crook of his neck, nowhere near the other daemon.

lucien peeks back into the room and tells him they’re going to go meet jack kerouac today. running his fingers over his daemon’s fur, still feeling the dull, lingering static of tam’s touch on her, allen feels empty.

**iii**

jack has withdrawn from the room for a moment to speak to edie, leaving allen to sit awkwardly on his couch while lucien relaxes on his back, legs up, beside him.

"stop moping," lucien says, nudging allen in the shoulder with his shoe.

"what’s so great about him?" allen frets, batting lucien’s foot away from him.

"come on, allen. he’s got a wolverine daemon. isn’t that _wild?”_

as much as allen is loath to admire lucien’s newest darling, he has to agree that there is something very attractive about this confident stranger with his untamed soul that bares her teeth when she laughs.

lucien’s trying to leave. his cheeks are stained with tears and his daemon is glued to his body. allen sits with him, pleads him to stay.

"you’ve changed something in me," allen says, and for the first time he holds out annie and shows lu the missing patch of fur over her heart.

lucien stares at them both in wonder, and his fingers leave tam’s fur for a moment, reach gingerly toward annie. allen feels like there’s a line of electricity between his daemon’s body and the skin of lu’s fingertip, an invisible connection that’s pulsing with energy and life, and all he wants in the universe is for lu to close the distance and unite them with his touch. but then he falters, pulls back, and the connection is broken.

"i’ll stay, ginsy," he murmurs. "your fault."

it’s the night of their bastille and allen’s blood is burning with adrenaline. he’s following bill towards the restricted section when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and turns his head just in time to see a flash of silver wings outside the window. he stops walking and his breath catches in his throat.

"ginsy, no chickening out," lucien hisses before sticking his flashlight in his mouth.

"i saw the owl," allen whispers urgently, and lu falls deathly still.

"what owl?" jack asks.

"david," bill mutters. the lock cracks and he swings the gate open, determination steeling the lines of his face. the alarm sounds.

david appears later in the bar with his owl on his shoulder, with an essay and a scarf for lu.

"your daemon’s been spying on us," allen accuses, glaring.

finally realizing what’s happened, jack jumps up, his wolverine daemon a snarling ball of brown fur beside him. “you ratted us out!”

the owl puffs up her feathers threateningly in response, but david remains eerily calm - until lucien tells him to leave. the change is immediate for both of them. the previously raised feathers loosen themselves from the owl’s body and scatter across the bar floor. david looks like all his insides have been scooped out and replaced with lead. bill takes him away.

"i hope i never have to see that dreadful bird again," lucien says, and downs his drink.

**iv**

lucien does, eventually, touch annie.

"first thought, best thought," allen whispers as their lips touch, and lucien responds to the kiss in all the ways he’d always dreamed. lucien gropes for allen’s throat, and meets annie instead. she fits inside his hand as perfectly as allen fits inside his mouth. allen feels exposed, as if he’s turned transparent and lucien is reading the secrets he kept under his skin. lucien’s warmth floods into allen through the fingers wrapped around his daemon’s small body and threatens to burn him from the inside out, but instead of letting it destroy him he basks in the glow of it, deepens the kiss. his own fingers reach out and he can feel that electrical line connecting him to tam’s nose, hovering just inches away. they’re about to make contact when they hear jack’s hoot of laughter, the drunken scuffle of his daemon’s claws across the grass of the hill, and everything falls apart. lucien snatches his hand away. he gets up, staring down at his fingers as if they are foreign to him, touches them to his lips. allen can still feel him, until he leaves.

then, everything is cold.

lucien awakens to a tap on the window. he expects to see the owl, but is surprised to see david himself crouched on jack’s fire escape, eyes black and hollow. lu opens the window.

"lucien," david pleads, and it’s like the entire spectrum of human emotion is clinging to his voice. lucien’s heart pounds and tam presses tight against his leg. they can both sense that something’s terribly wrong here.

"i just wanted to say… i’m sorry."

"i’m going back to sleep," lucien whispers coldly. he moves to close the window but david’s hand catches his, squeezes his thin wrist.

"lucien, you’ve… you’ve changed something in me."

at these familiar words, lucien’s stomach twists into a knot. david moves to reveal that standing beside him is a _serval_ , a serval with pale beige fur and the yellow eyes of an owl.

bile rises in lucien’s throat as he staggers backward in revulsion, tearing himself out of david’s grasp. tam hisses in fear, back arched. it’s like looking at some sort of twisted reflection. lucien, alive and beautiful and fierce, facing off against the disfigured remains of the one he once loved.

"another word, and i call the police," he forces out, voice cracking. david stares up at lu helplessly, his ghastly daemon quivering beside him.

lucien leaves the window.

david walks into the knife.

the world stands still for a moment, and then everything becomes a blur as lucien rips the knife out and stabs it back in with the force of all the darkness he’s harbored inside him for so long.

in the same instant, tam lunges for the other serval’s throat, tears it out in one swift motion. she doesn’t fight back, doesn’t even raise a paw to stop him, just crumples to the sand, gold dust leaking from the wound in time with the blood pumping from david’s chest.

lucien stabs again and again, barely conscious of his actions, consumed by a passionate need to _destroy_ david, dispose of his pathetic life and free himself from the chains his love had trapped him in.

he fills david’s pockets with rocks and drags him into the water to drown.

when he returns, naked and trembling, to the shore, tammy jumps into his arms, presses into his clammy skin. lucien collapses before david’s dying daemon and stares in horror at the awful caricature before him. as he looks into her fading eyes, he sees not rage, or sorrow, but pure _adoration_. he can’t help but feel like he’s watching his own soul die.

lucien cradles tammy and shakes with sobs as the last trace of david’s love dissolves into the night.

**v**

lucien grabs allen’s hand through the prison bars.

"i need you to help me."

allen doesn’t know if he can. he feels shattered, broken, torn apart.

( _lucien had taken a piece of him when tam marked annie_ )

"i’m gonna be stuck here for the rest of my life."

( _another when he touched her_ )

"please don’t leave me."

( _and a third he took with him_

 _when he walked away._ )

"i never even knew his daemon’s name," allen says numbly as he sits on bill’s bed, annie trembling in his palm.

"it was adora," bill informs him in monotone, "it meant ‘love’."

allen meets his mother in the grass outside the prison. for the first time in as long as he can remember, her daemon doesn’t grasp annie while they speak. instead, he nuzzles her with his beak, and she weeps. he had never meant to hurt her.

( _he had never meant to hurt him._ )

allen turns his story in to columbia and is expelled.

the fur on annie’s chest begins to grow back in.

allen visits lucien again, annie standing tall on his shoulder instead of hiding in his pocket. they don’t hide anymore.

lucien is sitting on the floor in his cell, tammy wrapped up in his arms with his golden forehead pressed into lu’s bruised throat. lu looks more fragile than ever, but there’s hope in his eyes as he watches allen settle on the ground outside. annie walks down his arm, places her paws on the bars.

"what’s it like out there?" lucien asks him, fingers tangled up in his daemon’s fur. tam reaches his nose through the bars to meet annie’s. it’s an apology, a pact, a promise that from now on they will both be whole, both be free. allen smiles.

"it’s the perfect day."

**Author's Note:**

> for pictures of the daemons, visit my [kill your darlings daemon au](http://aisu10.tumblr.com/tagged/kill+your+darlings+daemon+au/) tag on tumblr. i made a photoset for each character.


End file.
